Giver of Roses

1

Fortress of Astara, Land of Gadiel, Year of the Ancients 952

A frigid wind blew down from the heavens, impaling the bleak winter’s day
with piercing needles of ice. The sun veiled its rays behind a hazy pall, muting
the land in flat, forbidding light. Frost coated the withered brown grasses
and skeletal trees, and billowed thickly from the mouths of friend and foe alike.

Danae tugged the thick, dark gray cloak tightly to her, tucked back a recalcitrant
lock of pale yellow hair, and hunkered yet further into the hood’s relative
warmth. Still, as her gaze encompassed the army slowly massing on the plains
just below Astara’s colossal gates, a sudden, premonitory chill no clothing
could contain coursed through her body. Yet how was this day any different from
the long months and years of her captivity in Astara? Why would this moment
always stand apart from any other she had spent gazing down on the army of her
own people, praying for deliverance?

She glanced along the line of tuniced and gowned Astarians crowding the length
of the rough, tan-mottled agarat stone battlements, her gaze finally alighting
on the somber faces of the royal family Karayan. Horror widened the elegant,
silver-haired Queen Takouhi’s eyes. Worry darkened the ailing King Haig’s face.
Fear tightened Prince Hovan’s eternally petulant mouth.

It was the stoic resolve stiffening Crown Prince Vartan’s shoulders and lifting
his strong, proud chin, however, that filled Danae with the greatest foreboding.
Though she knew not from whence the presentiment came, somehow, some way, this
day his destiny teetered on the sheerest of precipices. She knew, and it tore
at her heart.

Amid a deafening blast of trumpets, four battle-clad horsemen rode to the
front of the army and drew up before Astara’s gates. The two outside riders
bore bright red and gold banners on tall, spear-tipped poles. As the wind snapped
the silken cloth to and fro, even from this height Danae could make out the
emblazoned gold helmet with its horsehair crest—the symbol of the hereditary
rulers of Hylas. The banners of her country, yet banners that filled her with
dread.

She shook her head fiercely, as if the act in itself could disperse the crazed
tumult of emotions churning within. This was madness. Slowly but surely, her
people were winning the battle against Astara, in a siege that had now lasted
three long, excruciating years.

It was past time the royal Gadielean city yield. It was past time the Hylean
king’s wife be surrendered, whether she wished it so or not. Calandra did not
belong here with the Gadielean king’s troublesome younger son, nor was she deserving
of the painful price the city must pay for her presence. Yet as dearly as Danae
desired the vain, selfish Queen Calandra to submit to her husband’s lawful authority,
she feared, oh, how she feared, the price might now come too dear.

Far, far too dear if Prince Vartan lost his life in the doing.

“Hail, King Haig,” a voice bellowed suddenly from below.

Danae’s gaze narrowed. That voice. She knew that voice . . . Her breath escaped
in a horrified gasp. It was Ladon. In spite of the years—and probably because
of long-suppressed memories—a confused mix of emotions rippled through her.

King Haig shot his eldest son a questioning glance. Danae saw Vartan pause
to sweep his wine red cloak edged in gold back from his shoulders, then mouth
Ladon’s name. His father nodded and stepped forward.

“Aye, what do you wish?” he shouted back.

“I bring you a proposition. A proposition to end the war.”

Beneath the horsehair-crested bronze helmet with its ornately scrolled cheek
plates and nose-guard, Danae saw Ladon’s mouth lift in a feral smile. She looked
back to where Vartan stood, off and slightly behind his father’s right. A bleak
ray of sudden sunlight glinted on shoulder-length, chestnut brown hair and smoothly
shaven cheeks, catching the subtle jump of muscle in his tautly clenched jaw.

Danae’s heart went out to him. Vartan was no fool. Three years of thwarting
King Feodras’s commanding general and battle champion had surely taught him
much about Ladon’s brutally treacherous ways. Nothing good would come of this
proposal.

“Aye, and that proposition is?” King Haig roared back, his haggard features
reddening with the unaccustomed effort. “Spit it out, man, before I lose what
little patience I have with you!”

Instead of angering the Hylean warrior, his enemy’s goading appeared only
to please Ladon the more. “We weary of this war,” he cried. “But honor must
be salvaged, yours no less than ours. To that purpose, on the morrow at midday,
send down your greatest warrior. Send him to meet me in a fight to the death.
If he wins, Feodras gives his word he’ll withdraw and take his army back to
Hylas. But if I win”—Ladon’s smile grew all the wider—“Astara must surrender.”

King Haig leaned forward and clenched the stone wall until his knuckles whitened.
Beneath his crown of costly jewels and hammered gold, his thinning gray hair
fluttered dispiritedly in the wind. “S-surrender?” he all but choked out the
word. “And what honor is in that? Tell your king—”

“Feodras gives his word Astara will not be sacked, nor will its citizens
be harmed,” Ladon cried. “All he desires is Calandra and the satisfaction of
knowing he is victor. To gain those, he gives his word, a word he’ll honor until
his dying breath.” With a vicious jerk, the Hylean reined in his nervously prancing
horse. “You’ve two hours to make your decision. Two hours, King Haig, and then
the offer is no more.”

As if to add a final emphasis to his words, Ladon signaled his mount forward.
Once free of the confinement of the other horses, he sharply kneed the animal
so that it reared high, pawing the air. Then, with a burst of maniacal laughter,
he pivoted his horse and galloped away.

For several tension-laden minutes, the Astarian king regarded the four retreating
horsemen. Finally he turned, meeting his eldest son’s gaze

Danae could only guess what emotions arced between them. Vartan was Astara’s
greatest warrior, and Ladon knew it. Vartan, at thirty-two a man in his prime,
was graced with keen intelligence and battle-honed strategic abilities. He had
always been the one sure obstacle to the Hyleans’ overwhelming forces. Without
Vartan, Astara was surely doomed.

Yet even as she watched the two men, Danae knew what the answer would be.
For the sake of his people, Vartan Karayan would risk his life. To risk was
to retain some vestige of hope for a successful outcome. But there was no hope,
none whatsoever, in a battle to the death with Ladon.

Years ago, it was said the Hylean champion had traded his limited span of
years for immortality. It was said he had given his soul over to Phaon, the
Dark Lord. Danae knew the rumors were true.

Vartan hadn’t a chance. Ladon was now invincible.

´ ¨

Ladon’s offer couldn’t have come at a worse time, Vartan thought as he followed
his father and the rest of the royal entourage back into the palace. They moved
down the long, polished marmora stone corridors to one of the private reception
rooms. Earlier this very day, he had inspected the subterranean caverns that
held Astara’s food stores. Thanks to a mysterious leak from the city’s main
well—a leak no one had noticed until now—most of the remaining food was ruined.

There were barely a week’s rations left. After that, they had less than a
month before starvation and disease set in. Whether or not his father accepted
Feodras’s proposition, Astara couldn’t hold out much longer.

But could Feodras be trusted to keep his word? Vartan knew Ladon could not.
There was something crazed, indeed almost fanatical, about that warrior’s hatred
for Astara—and especially for him. This wasn’t the first time, after all, the
Hylean had challenged him to battle. Before, though, Vartan hadn’t seen any
need to sacrifice himself in a foolhardy, and most likely fatal, display of
masculine prowess—especially not to please the likes of Ladon.

The Hylean champion’s reputation had preceded him from far across the Great
Sea. Not only had the man never been defeated in battle, but he had never once—ever—ostensibly
suffered wounding of any kind. Though Vartan didn’t believe in the God of the
Ancients, much less in an evil counterpart, there was still something sinister
and otherworldly about Ladon . . .

Astara’s royals entered the reception room, its high ceiling and walls covered
in vibrantly painted scenes of the valiant deeds of past Gadielean kings. They
immediately strode to the black marmora stone hearth in the center of the room
to warm themselves. Servants offered them cups of bracing, spiced hot salma,
then exited, shutting the huge, intricately carved turkawood doors behind them.
Vartan turned to his father.

“The only question that remains is not whether we will accept Feodras’s offer—we
haven’t any choice. The question is, once Astara surrenders, can Feodras be
counted on to honor his word?”

“And I say it isn’t a matter of options or lack thereof, but a matter of
pride,” King Haig stoutly replied. Cup in hand, he gingerly lowered himself
to sit on the wide, stone bench encircling the fire. “I’ll not dishonor House
Karayan by sacrificing you in some fool’s quest.” He sighed and shook his head.
“If Ladon were a mortal man, I would send you out and gladly. You’re the best
of us, my son, and few could defeat you. But Ladon . . .”

A bleak look clouded his pale blue eyes. “Perhaps we should just offer an
outright surrender. At least then you’d live past the morrow. Or, better still,
you might try one last time to rally the Diya al Din tribes to us. Or even the
Dwarves of Elgar. They, at least, were once our loyal liege men.”

“And why not the Dragonmaids of Mount Talin as well?” Hovan offered with
a smirk. The sandy-haired prince paused to empty the contents of his cup, then
struck an exaggerated, considering pose. “But who could we send to ferret out
their secret portal? Vartan is certainly the most pure in heart of us, but there’s
that minor matter that he has tasted the pleasures of the flesh, at least a
time or two. Still, perhaps just this once, considering our dire straits, those
men-hating serpent riders might make an exception.”

Vartan sent his brother a scalding look. The sneer on Hovan’s face faded
as he turned pallid.

“They won’t come,” Vartan growled. “We’ve already tried that and were rebuffed.
And neither will the Greenwald Elves, given their king’s view of me after I
nearly eloped with his favorite child and married her over his strenuous objections
. . .” His voice trailed off as he thought of his ailing wife, Aelwyd. By sheer
will Vartan forced himself to return to the considerations at hand. “Neither
will the Northern Rune Lords, who never even joined the first alliance, aid
us. Nothing binds Gadiel’s people anymore. Nothing has for hundreds of years,
not since the time of the Ancients. And we don’t have the luxury of hundreds
of years to mend the wounds caused by the treachery, deceit, and greed—on all
sides. Not now, not with the Hylean army at our gates and our people on the
brink of starvation!

“As for an outright surrender, that won’t save me in any case,” he added,
turning back to his father. “One way or another, Ladon will see me dead. Indeed,
it’s to Feodras’s advantage as well. With you ailing, Father, I’m now the threat
and will remain so for as long as I live.”

“But Feodras said no citizen would be harmed!”

Vartan gave a disparaging snort. “Aye, I may not be harmed, but I’d wager
I also won’t long remain in Astara, or even Gadiel for that matter. My wasting
away in some Hylean dungeon still ultimately serves both Feodras’s and Ladon’s
purposes.”

His father’s extended silence was confirmation he suspected the same.

“Where Ladon is concerned,” Vartan finally continued, “whether the tales
are true or not, if we don’t surrender I’ll have to meet him sooner or later.
I far prefer it while I’m strong, rather than when half-dead from hunger or
sickness. The morrow might well be the only chance, if there indeed is any chance,
I’ll ever have to defeat him.”

He leaned down and clasped his father by the shoulder. “It’ll take a miracle,
I know, but I must try. Give me your leave, Majesty. Please.”

“Then who, Father? Would you instead shame us by sending out an inferior
warrior?” Hovan demanded, sidl-ing closer. “We’d be the laughingstock of the
Hylean army, we would. Indeed not only the laughingstock, but we’d risk delivering
an insult that might compel Feodras permanently to rescind his offer. Are you
willing to risk all of Astara for the sake of one man’s life? Even if,” he added
with a derisive curl of his lip, “that one man is your most beloved child?”

When did we cease to be brothers and become so at odds? Vartan wondered,
gazing into eyes now blazing with malevolent antagonism. When had the little
brother six years his junior, who had once hung on his every word and imitated
his every move, changed into such a spiteful, selfish man?

Had it happened in that year Hovan had lived in Feodras’s court, sent to
learn the ways of diplomacy to prepare him for a future role in service to Astara?
Or had it instead been slow and insidious throughout their youth, as Hovan inevitably
discovered he would never, no matter how hard he tried, gain the father’s acclaim
he so avidly sought? Leastwise, not the kind of acclaim as a warrior that had
always come so easily for his older brother.

The old question rose once more in Vartan’s mind. Must he own some of the
blame for the man Hovan had become? Had he somehow failed him, in not being
more of a brother? But what more could he have done? He loved Hovan, as did
their father. What else could they have done to show that love?

“Hovan’s right, Father,” Vartan replied, heartsick that now, in what might
well be the last hours he would spend with his brother, there still seemed no
way to quench the hatred Hovan clutched so mightily to him. “If I must be sacrificed
for Astara’s sake, Hovan and Zagiri will still remain.” He smiled in sudden,
sad remembrance. “And Korien, too. There’ll always be your grandson to remind
you of me.”

“Far better,” his sire muttered, “that you live to be a father to your son.
A son needs his father. And Aelwyd . . .” He sighed. “Aelwyd will always need
you.”

Frustration filled Vartan. Did his father think him so self-absorbed that
a hero’s death was all that really mattered? He loved his son with all his heart.
Korien was his pride and joy. And Aelwyd . . . though she was no longer the
vibrant, exciting woman he had married, she wasn’t to blame. Perhaps it was
his own arrogance that had ultimately brought them to this sad place in their
bond union. She was his wife. He would always honor her as such.

“I don’t want to die, Father. I love my family, my life. If there were any
other way . . .”

Vartan paused, his glance momentarily ensnared as the door opened. Aelwyd
walked in, garbed in a shimmering, soft green gown with long sleeves. Danae
followed, carrying a chubby, two-year-old Korien in her arms.

The look on Aelwyd’s beauteous face warned him of what was to come. She knew;
she had heard. Vartan squared his shoulders and turned to face her.

“What do you mean to do?” his ebony-haired, Elfin wife demanded in a low
voice, drawing up before him. “The news must be all over the city by now, yet
I had to hear from a servant that that cursed Hylean warrior means to kill you
on the morrow. A servant, Vartan!”

For a fleeting instant, Vartan’s gaze found Danae’s over his wife’s shoulder.
At the question burning in his eyes, her lips tightened and she gave a small
shake of her head. He should’ve known. Danae was no gossipmonger. Some other
servant had run to Aelwyd with the news.

“There wasn’t time, my love.” He forced what he hoped was a conciliatory
smile. “We’ve but two hours to come to a decision. A decision that must be made
as prudently and dispassionately as possible.”

“In other words,” Aelwyd all but hissed, her voice rising now on a thread
of hysteria, “a decision made without any thought given for your responsibilities
to your wife and son. How can you be so selfish? So—so puffed up in your misguided
sense of self-importance that you, once again, fail to consider anyone but yourself?
But why should this surprise me, any more than all the other insensitive hurts
you’ve inflicted on me? You’re a hard-hearted, arrogant man, Vartan Karayan!”

With that, Aelwyd clasped her arms about herself and began to weep, loudly
and piteously. Korien, his blue eyes wide, whimpered and squirmed in Danae’s
arms, reaching out to his mother. Vartan clamped down hard on his impulse to
turn his wife around and march her from the room. As embarrassing as it was
to expose their marital problems before the others, it wasn’t as if his family
wasn’t already aware of them. Aelwyd’s erratic behavior and unpredictable mood
swings had been rapidly worsening ever since their son’s birth.

He heard Hovan cough behind his hand in a failed attempt to stifle a laugh.
Rage seared through him. How dare his brother gloat after his own thoughtlessness
had brought Astara to the brink of disaster? True, Vartan and Aelwyd had defied
the strictures against Elf and human unions—strictures Vartan now realized might
well have been sound—but at least they were lawfully wed. At least Vartan hadn’t
stolen another man’s wife, the Queen of Hylas no less, whom Hovan now lived
with in flagrant adultery!

But even that didn’t matter anymore. Once their father had decided to shield
his youngest son and Queen Calandra from King Feodras’s wrath, there was no
turning back. All that was left for Vartan was to serve his king and people,
and to do so the best, the most honorable, way he knew how.

Vartan took Aelwyd in his arms. “Hush, sweet one,” he whispered into the
fragrant mass of her hair. “I love you and Korien. Never would I willingly choose
to leave either of you. But, if I must, I’ll die to protect you. You know that.”

“Nay!” she wailed. “There must be some other way. There must!”

“If there is, we’ll find it, my love.” Gently, he pushed her from him. “You
must leave us now to do just that.” Vartan looked to Danae. She stepped forward.
“You must go with Danae,” he said, glancing back to his wife. “Will you do that?”

Aelwyd gazed up at him through her tears and, for an instant, Vartan thought
she’d leave quietly. Then her jaw hardened, and she savagely shook her head.

She reared back and slapped him in the face. “Selfish, arrogant beast!” she
screamed, pounding now at his head and body. “How dare you deny me? I won’t
have it, I say! I won’t . . . have it . . .”

With that, Aelwyd swooned. Only Vartan’s swift response in catching and swinging
her up into his arms prevented her from falling to the floor. The imprint of
his wife’s hand still stinging his cheek, he hefted her slight form close, then
turned to his father.

Where he expected pity he found only concern.

“Is she all right, my son?”

“I think so,” Vartan ground out between clenched teeth. “I need to take her
back to our quarters, though.”

“And what of Feodras’s offer? Time grows short.”

A heavy weight pressed down on Vartan, and he fought hard against a sudden
swell of despair. “Do nothing without first gaining Feodras’s word—from his
own lips—that he’ll spare Astara and all its citizens. And if you obtain that
word, then there’s nothing left but to accept his offer. Whatever you decide,
Father, I will do.”

Tear-bright eyes met his. “I know that, my son. I know.”

´ ¨

It was but an hour until the evening meal when Danae finally found a few
blessed minutes of solitude. She hurried to the private inner courtyard of Vartan
and Aelwyd’s quarters. There, even in the chill of winter, a green and tan striated
fountain shaped like one of Gadiel’s many palmlike desert trees flowed, filling
the air with the soothing sound of water.

She took a seat near the small iron brazier filled with fire-hot coals, pulling
her cloak to cover her simple woolen gown. The brazier’s heat soon warmed and
calmed her. If she closed her eyes, blocked out the unsettling events of the
day, Danae could almost imagine life went on as it always had since she first
came to Astara and was taken into the Crown Prince’s household.

The youngest child of one of Feodras’s cavalry generals, Danae was possessed
of many talents—among them the skilled use of the curved Hylean lyra and the
gift of a hauntingly lovely voice. She had grown up in frequent contact with
the royal court. In time, she had caught the eye of the king’s second wife,
a young, exceptionally beautiful woman from the neighboring district of Pyramus.
Calandra had eventually offered Danae a position as one of her lady’s maids,
and for a long while the two girls—Calandra at the time having barely left girlhood
herself—were inseparable. Then one day, a handsome young Gadielean prince named
Hovan Karayan arrived in Feodras’s court for an extended stay.

Danae had watched them fall in love. With what she now knew had been misplaced
loyalty, she held her tongue, never revealing Calandra’s infidelity to her husband.
Danae had refused, however, to run away with Calandra and her lover when Hovan’s
time at court came to an end. Unfortunately, Calandra was even more determined
not to be parted from her friend and favorite lady’s maid. By the time Danae
awoke from the sleeping potion Hovan had slipped into her food, they were far
out on the Great Sea, sailing for Gadiel.

She sighed, leaned forward, and extended her hands to warm them over the
glowing coals. As ashamed as she was to admit it, the betrayal still festered
in her heart. Their relationship had irrevocably changed. She would never again
serve Calandra.

The two brothers nearly came to blows over her, before Hovan at last agreed
to Vartan’s offer to buy the recalcitrant seventeen-year-old Hylean girl. And
though Aelwyd was initially less than pleased with the purchase, she, too, soon
formed a fast friendship with Danae. A friendship that endured, despite the
Elfin woman’s gradual but apparently inexorable descent into madness.

Aelwyd’s illness notwithstanding, Danae had eventually found peace and contentment
in the Karayan household. She had nursed her friend through a difficult first
pregnancy, stood by her at Korien’s birth, and had become all but a second mother
to the beautiful baby who had now grown into an energetic toddler. She had also,
over the years of frequent contact with Vartan Karayan, come to know, respect,
and finally fall in love with him.

“He fills your thoughts more than ever, doesn’t he?” a voice softly intruded
on Danae’s pensive musings. “But indeed, he fills all our thoughts, today, this
most tragic of days.”

Hot blood flooding her cheeks, Danae jerked around to find Vartan’s younger
sister, Zagiri, standing beside the fountain. The water’s soft music, she realized,
must have muted the sound of the other woman’s approach. Danae rose to her feet.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered out a response
she instantly knew sounded silly and false. Still, it took a moment under Zagiri’s
steady, compassionate gaze before she finally relented. “Well, aye, I suppose
I am thinking of Vartan. It’s just so cruel, so unfair . . .”

Her eyes began to sting, and she flushed all the more. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled,
glancing down to hide the tears. “It’s just that . . . just that he’s always
been so good to me . . .”

“I know. I understand . . . more than you might realize.”

Slender and of medium height like Danae, thirty-year-old Zagiri had a pleasant
face, smooth, pink cheeks, and a gentle mouth. She wore her wavy, dark brown
hair cut short and was always garbed, despite her regal status, in a rather
shapeless, hooded, long brown robe. Considered cursed with a strange sort of
madness—Zagiri mouthed prophecies that made little sense—the middle child of
the royal siblings had always treated Danae kindly, in time even becoming her
spiritual mentor.

She gestured to the bench Danae had just vacated. “Let’s sit. We’ve things
to speak of. Important things, such as how you alone can now aid my brother.”

Danae all but fell back onto the bench. “Aid Vartan? How?”

Zagiri walked over and sat beside her. “How else,” she asked, her voice low
and melodious, “but to teach him of Athan and His precious Son, Eisa? Then,
though Vartan may die, he will live.”

Of course, Danae thought. To accept the All-Knowing, the Creator, into one’s
heart was to gain immortality in the Afterlife. And, according to Zagiri, Vartan
was not and never had been one of the Faithful.

“I would do that, and gladly,” she said, “but what could I say, as unschooled
as I still am in the ways of Athan, when all your efforts have failed? Especially
now, when there’s so little time left?”

“We’re all instruments in Athan’s hands. Some He uses for one task, and some
are meant for others. You’re called to aid my brother in the hard times to come.
I must mouth prophecies no one of House Karayan or of the city of Astara believes.”

“Well, I believe them!”

Zagiri smiled. “But then, you aren’t of House Karayan or of Astara, are you?”

Danae grinned. “Nay, I’m not.”

“Yet, since you do believe, I’ve one last prophecy to share with you.” She
paused, closed her eyes for a moment, then turned the full force of her striking
sea blue gaze—eyes Danae had long ago noted were the same shade as her older
brother’s—on her. “It’s not of my making, mind you, but it’s past time you know
of whom this Prophecy speaks.”

“And what exactly is this prophecy?”

“Listen closely, dear friend,” Zagiri said, drawing even nearer and dropping
her voice. “I dare not utter it too loudly in these troubled times, for fear
some unholy creature might overhear and seek to put an end to it before it can
be fulfilled.”

“Unfortunately, aye, if the instruments are unwilling or choose the wrong
path.” She smiled sadly. “It’s the one variable in the Divine plan: our right—one
of Athan’s greatest and most loving gifts—to refuse Him.”

Zagiri took Danae’s hand. “Now, listen . . . and hear with the ears of your
heart.” She intoned:

Desperate times,

Death and destruction.

The Guardian returns,

Blind to his destiny.

Evil breaks free,

A land lost in shadows.

The Guardian returns,

From ruin to rebirth.

All praise to the Son

Whose marks he now carries.

The Guardian returns,

His hands filled with roses.

“It comes from the Song of the Ancients,” Vartan’s sister explained after
a brief pause, “this Prophecy of prophecies.”

Along with The Covenant of Athan, the Song of the Ancients was one of the
Faithfuls’ two most sacred books. Danae’s mouth quirked. “It must be well into
that holy tome then, for I’ve yet to study it. But what do those verses mean?
What are the marks this Guardian carries? And what does this person hope to
do with but a handful of roses?”

“I’ve yet to discern the true significance of the marks,” Zagiri replied,
“though I have my suspicions. The Guardian, however, is meant to save Gadiel.
And the blue rose has always been the sacred flower of the land, symbolic of
truth, unity, and a pure, loving heart. Those who go in peace must always carry
blue roses. But over the centuries, as the Old Alliance fell by the wayside
and distrust and feuding grew more and more prevalent in the land, so the blue
rose of Gadiel began to disappear. Now, there are few to be found anywhere.”

Danae had seen the stylized blue flower encircled by a golden crown emblazoned
on the white silk banners flying from various positions around the city, but
had never thought to ask about its significance. Now Danae knew, understood.
It was the flag of Gadiel, and the royal city of Astara had the singular honor,
above all cities, to display it. There was, though, yet one unanswered question.

“Why do you tell me this? Why now, when most likely I’ll rejoin my father
and my people on the morrow? What will it matter, when I’ll soon put Astara
and Gadiel far behind me and return to my former life?”

“Will you, Danae? Return to your former life, I mean?” Zagiri averted her
gaze, a faraway look in her eyes. “What if Athan asks you to do differently?
Will you, too, refuse Him?”

“After all you’ve taught me of Athan, and how I’ve come to love Him and His
Son, you know I couldn’t.” Even the consideration made her heart ache. “But
what could He possibly want from me, leastwise in regards to Astara and Gadiel?
I’m no heroine, and certainly not the one of whom the Prophecy speaks.”

A sudden thought assailed Danae, and with it came a rising presentiment.
“Whom does the Prophecy speak of, Zagiri? The one who brings the roses, who
saves the land?”

A soft, enigmatic smile touched the other woman’s lips. “The giver of roses.”

“The giver of roses?”

“Aye. Vartan, of course. Didn’t you know? In the ancient tongue, his name
means ‘giver of roses.’”